AuthorTopic: Introducing myself (Read 7025 times)

Hi, I'm a telco grad student from Brazil, new to Linux in every possible way and to forums in general. My main concern is to use VL to learn more about OS's in general, improve my computer skills and become less dependent from Microsoft. One day who knows, I might leave Windows for good. I hope you can help convince me to do so.

So far, my attempt to start using Linux hasn't worked very well. I bought a new HD so I could install VL without giving away my Windows installation, but after cloning my current system (60GB) to the new HDD (100GB) I realized I couldn't install another OS on the remaining partition (apparently it was too high in the memory address).

I had actually partitioned this new disk in advance, but apparently clonezilla overwrote all previous partitions when I cloned the old drive. Is there any tutorial on how to install Linux without giving up on your previous system? Is there a disk partitioning/cloning freeware better than clonezilla?

I probably should post this question in another section, but since I'm already at it and it seem like a very simple issue, maybe I can kill two birds.

Why did you clone the Hard drive? (...)Why do you believe there was a problem with the memory space (usually not an issue)?

Install the second drive no need to clone unless you were moving the drives for another reason. Use the second drive for Vector and leave the first drive alone.

HTH

Bigpaws

Thank you for the fast reply! First of all, I'm installing the So Ho 5.8 version. And I forgot to mention that my computer is a Laptop (with no space for a 2nd HDD) and I plan on keeping my old HDD as an external back up storage for data. That's why I wanted to clone the old disk, i's the only way I can keep the content and software I have installed there and have more disk space for VL.

I shouldn't have written "memory" , I actually meant 'storage'. The VL installation was aborted exactly at the step when the ext2 partition was being examined ('partition error'). I don't know much about this, but I've been told it's not recommended to install an OS when you have a 60GB NTFS partition before the ext2. I'll check other threads on the ideal partitioning scheme for multiboot installation (this case is not detailed in the 'HOWTOs').thanks

We are unable to help you until we know what partitioning scheme you now have on the replicated drive. You can do that by going into the VL Install CD, second screen, choose Exit, you then end up at a root console. Type "fdisk -l" and post the output of that command here so we can determine what partitions you have and if you have any free space to install VL.

Logged

"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers". Robert G. Ingersoll

That's why I wanted to clone the old disk, i's the only way I can keep the content and software I have installed there and have more disk space for VL.

You can shrink an NTFS or FAT32 partition without data loss using GParted. It's on the VectorLinux 5.8 LiveCD and also on SystemRescue (do a Web search for that--free download, lots of nice utilities for fixing Linux and Windows). I used GParted on my Vista NTFS Drive C to carve out 16 gigs for VectorLinux. Worked perfectly. Actually, I shrank the drive by 48 gigs, then created an extended partition to include all the empty space, then created a 32-gig FAT32 volume using Vista's Disk Management Snapin, then within the extended partition I created a 512-meg swap partition for Linux using cfdisk, and then I made a Linux partition of all the remaining space using cfdisk. I formatted it as reiserfs.

Be sure to back up your Windows partition before you do any repartitioning, regardless of what tool you use. Although it's usually reliable, something bad does occasionally happen. Also, having a backup scares away the computer gremlins.<g>

Why are you using ext2? ext3 is a journalling file system, as is reiserfs (to mention the tried and true file systems).

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I've been told it's not recommended to install an OS when you have a 60GB NTFS partition before the ext2.

Not in my experience. I have two computers with NTFS partitions of over 60 gigs before my Linux partition. They are all formatted with reiserfs. Unless your computer has a very old BIOS, Linux can boot from just about anywhere. The boot manager will find it.

I have three computers with multiboot. The one I'm writing on is a laptop with Vista and VL 5.9 beta. My newer desktop has XP and VL 5.8 Standard and two hard drives. My older desktop has Win 98SE, Win XP, and three versions of VectorLinux. It also has two hard drives. On none of them is Linux the sole occupant of a hard drive.--GrannyGeek

The 5GiB logical partition was meant for XP/Linux file exchange, but I don't think I did it right . Anyway that would require a new thread. Any solved similar case? It doesn't look like I'll have to go through the whole installation process again, does it?

I suspect that the partition to which you are attempting to install a boot loader to has not been made "bootable" when you created your partitions. The output of the Linux command will tell you if you have a bootable partition or not (there will be an asterisk under the boot column). If you have problems read the Installation guide at our website, the partitioning part ( http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/docs/vl58/manuals/vl5_installation_guide_en.html#partitioning ).

You may not have to re-install - you just go to the second page on the VL Install screens and choose LILO Repair, after you have fixed up your partitions.

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"As people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers". Robert G. Ingersoll

Did you re-install XP from scratch, repair old one, or did it just boot right up after the cloning/moving operations?

It booted right up! Nightflier was right, there were 3 primaries (Swap,XP and Root) and the others are extended partitions. I changed the shared partition (the logical partition accessible to both VL and XP) to fat32 and made the root partition bootable, but still the lilo repair didn't work, same error message as before (and XP wouldn't boot, but it got back to normal after I toggled the root's boot capability off). Maybe I should take some time to read the lilo man page, or should I use Grub instead?